Читать книгу The Forgotten Guide to Happiness - Sophie Jenkins - Страница 11

Next morning I woke up, hungover, with my pillow over my head, fighting for air. I’d slept badly all night, just on the edge of unconsciousness, and rolled over, relieved to see dawn bleeding into the room. I felt shabby, with a pounding headache that made me squint. Even with the curtains closed, the room seemed unreasonably bright.

My failure crowded me in and I got out of bed, walking on a lean. Glancing at the empty bottle and the greasy pizza box, depression clung to me like a cold, wet cleansing cloth.

The letterbox rattled and there in the hall lay a letter from my publishers, forwarded to me by Kitty.

I tore it open, hoping that the publishers had made a mistake and they wanted Heartbreak after all, but no. Still, it was the next best thing. It was a royalty cheque.

For five pounds and seventy-one pence.

I studied it carefully. How could that be right? I pointed at each word as I read it, hoping I was delusional. But no.

How had this happened? I was now officially broke.

Fresh panic made my heartbeat thud chaotically around my skull like a squash ball.

I held my head in my hands to steady it and I sat at the table and suddenly recalled that I’d had some drunken inspiration for a new plot. Trembling, I checked my notebook in case I had become Stephen King under the influence. I’d written: Mopeds. Virgin. Stern letter. £10,000-ish. There might be a story there somewhere but I couldn’t remember what it was.

I got dressed and decided to address the main problem, insolvency, by going to visit my bank.

I had to wait to see an advisor. I sat on one of three seats by a low orange partition that acted as a wall for the desks behind it. The light buzzed like a bee in a jar. Although there were three desks set at angles, only one was occupied so I settled down to wait, and with nothing else to do I watched the advisor, a thin man with vertically gelled hair, greet his client, an old, bald Asian guy with an anxious expression. He sat down cautiously and pushed a paper across the table.

‘Is this your name?’ the advisor asked him.

The old man leant forward and confirmed it in a low voice.

‘What’s your address?’ the advisor asked, studying the screen.

The old man sensed my interest and glanced at me crossly. He turned back to the advisor and huddled further across the desk, like a man with something to hide – an exam paper, for example.

‘In Hong Kong?’

The advisor paused. ‘No, UK.’

‘No address in UK,’ the old man said sternly.

‘There’s nothing here under this name. But then how—’

The old man scribbled something down. ‘Try this way,’ he instructed.

Triple-tapping of the keyboard, and then … ‘Sorry. I’m not finding it. If you have your account number—’

‘I give you my money! Hundreds! Thousands!’ the old man cried out in panic.

Imagine that! What a nightmare! Putting all your money in a bank and suddenly they’ve got no record of you.

A slim, blonde woman stood over me. ‘Are you waiting to see an advisor?’

‘Yes,’ I said, so I don’t know how the story turned out.

Better than mine, I hope.

We walked over to one of the empty desks. ‘How can I help you?’ she asked warmly as I sat down, which led me into a false sense of security. She reminded me of Meryl Streep, with her glasses and her up-do, so I told her the whole sorry story about my book being turned down. As the horror of it came back afresh, I asked her for an overdraft to keep me going until I wrote another novel and got my advance.

She turned her attention from me to the screen. ‘You already have an unauthorised overdraft which is costing you five pounds a day,’ she said blandly.

‘Five pounds a day? No wonder I’ve got no money. If you could just authorise that overdraft so that I don’t have to throw money away, that will be great.’ I was showing her how astute I was, financially speaking.

‘You have already exceeded your overdraft limit.’

‘Well, I’d like to extend it. It’s just temporary, until I get my advance.’

‘What date are you expecting to receive that?’ she asked, fingers poised so she could type it in.

I was starting to feel uneasy. ‘I don’t have an exact date because I have to write a new storyline first but I’ll do it as soon as possible, obviously.’

She frowned and I remembered I didn’t actually like Meryl Streep much.

‘Approximately how long will it take?’ she asked. Her voice was a couple of degrees colder.

‘Well …’ I began, getting panicky – it was giving me writer’s block just thinking about it, ‘I actually know two authors who’ve written a whole book in a fortnight.’ One of them is a woman with an overactive thyroid. If I ever have to have an illness, that’s the one I’d choose because it revs you up – the body is working perpetual overtime and you can get a lot done with that spare energy. An overactive thyroid is like natural cocaine. On the minus side, like cocaine, it makes you more prone to having a heart attack, but I’m just saying, if.

She lowered her fingers and turned her attention from the screen to me. ‘You’re saying you’ll only get paid once you’ve written a new book?’

‘Yes.’ I shouldn’t have poured my heart out to her – bad mistake. I thought she’d feel sorry for me, but here she was holding it against me already.

She looked at her screen again. ‘You currently don’t have sufficient funds to cover your direct debits.’

‘Exactly! That’s why I’m here.’

She was so frosty you would have thought I was asking her to lend me money out of her own pocket. Where was the compassion, the eagerness to help?

After a bit more tapping and clicking, she said, ‘As you have reached your overdraft limit, we can’t extend it. A limit is a limit,’ she explained, enunciating clearly.

It was the way she said it that annoyed me. ‘Hey, I know what a limit is! Words are my life!’ Knowing how ridiculous I sounded, but I was desperate. This wasn’t going at all the way I’d imagined. I hadn’t realised that banks love you when you have money, and they go off you when you don’t, like the worst sort of friends. ‘So what do I do now? If you stop my direct debits I won’t be able to pay my rent and I’ll be homeless. Is that what you want?’

‘I would like to remind you not to raise your voice.’ She pointed to a sign by the window which read: Abuse of advisors will not be tolerated.

I’d always wondered why that notice was there, and now I knew. I jumped to my feet in frustration.

‘Well you’re not getting this,’ I said, waving my royalty cheque. Impulsively, I tore it up and threw the bits over the table. My heart was pumping hard as I walked towards the stairs.

One day’s overdraft money lost in a pointless gesture. I immediately regretted it.

Back home, I lay on the lemon sofa and realised to my dismay I was going to have to ring my mother for help. She lives in Loano, Italy. (Literally, the last resort.) She can detect laziness even over the phone so as I pressed her number I sat on the edge of my desk so as to sound alert and also to enjoy the view which in all probability wasn’t going to be mine for much longer.

‘Pronto!’ she answered impatiently.

‘Mum? It’s me. Lana,’ I added for clarity.

‘Oh, this is a surprise,’ she said.

She’d been a teacher, and then a head teacher, and after the divorce she’d taken early retirement and gone to the Italian Riviera to boss a whole new country around for a change. I can spot a teacher a mile off. They’re the ones telling people off.

I took a deep breath and once again I felt the burning shame of failure. ‘Listen, I’ve got something to tell you. My new book got turned down yesterday.’

‘Got? You mean it was turned down.’

See?

Now that she’d corrected my grammar, she waited for me to go on.

‘Well, that’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you.’

‘Oh,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps now is a good time to think about doing something else.’

‘But I don’t want to.’ My voice started to rise. Right. Be calm. Regroup. Clear throat. ‘I didn’t call you for advice. The point is, without Mark, I can’t afford next month’s rent.’

She was silent for a long moment. ‘You’re calling to borrow money?’

‘Yes, please. It’s just until I come up with a new story.’

‘Why don’t you try asking the bank?’

Desperation made me flippant. ‘I have tried them, and now I’m trying you.’

‘I see.’ She managed to put a surprising amount of disapproval into that short sentence.

When I was little, someone gave her a book by Libby Purves called How (Not) to Be a Perfect Mother, and she’s stuck rigidly to the concept ever since.

After a long silence, she sighed deeply. ‘Do you want to come and stay here for a while?’

Did I? It wasn’t the solution I would have chosen, but it was still a solution and I grasped it, trying not to sound too eager.

‘I sort of do,’ I said.

‘Sort of do?’

‘Is that not grammatically correct?’

‘Come then, if that’s what you’d like.’

Honestly, no wonder I prefer making things up to real life. ‘But would you like me to come? You know, with enthusiasm?’

‘You’re my daughter,’ she said, which wasn’t really an answer.

I probably expect too much of her. She’s never been a Cath Kidston, cupcake-baking type of mother. If I went to stay it would like having twenty-four-hour private tuition from her. And from her point of view, she would be wasting her teaching skills on a bratty and reluctant pupil. We love each other but we don’t get each other in the slightest.

I’m guessing this was going through her mind, too. ‘Why don’t you go back to journalism?’ she suggested.

‘Definitely not! I hated that job. I hated visiting people when they were at their worst. I hated court reports, and seeing the looks on their families’ faces as their men were described as being of “bad character”. I loathed the whole Crufts Doc in Dog Collar Shock thing. Yuk!’

‘In that case, have you thought about teaching creative writing?’ she suggested.

‘Hah! Those that can’t, teach,’ I said bitterly, managing to insult us both in one sentence. I’d turned down a job as tutor at the London Literary Society a few months previously on the grounds I was too busy writing my sequel. Well, I’d had money then; I could afford to.

‘Actually, you make a far better teacher if you can do a thing,’ my mother said, ‘and despite your current setback you’re a published, successful author. Capitalise on it.’

‘Yee-ees.’ I’ve never fancied teaching because I’m no good at telling people what to do but I didn’t argue because she’d just said I was a successful author – the first time she’d ever acknowledged it. It gave me a bit of a lift, to be honest. ‘Thanks, I’ll think about it.’

‘Good!’

Before I could say anything else, she hung up.

I always forget that about her, that she comes to the end of a call and hangs up. Mind you, it does away with the closing awkwardness of lovely to talk to you, yes, same, see you soon, yeah great, have a good day, call me, I will, lots of love, etc., but it still takes me by surprise.

I stood by the window and imagined getting a job.

It would just be for money, I told myself.

I would still write in my spare time.

Getting a job. The phrase broke my heart; the fading dreams of an ex-writer, the brave face – yeah, but it’s only temporary, I’m working on another book, going for literary this time … dragging that lie out for a few years until people gave up asking me how the novel was coming along.

Still, I was forced to face reality and so I began to update my CV. I was sadly deficient in most employment skills such as bar-tending or barista work, but I was willing to learn.

Shortly after that, my father unexpectedly rang me to tell me the Chelsea score. I only support them because he does, not because I have any particular interest in football, but he used to take me to the home games when we lived in Fulham and I think of those days with a certain nostalgia. Since we had lost touch with the minutiae of each other’s daily lives and we had taboo subjects like Jo-Ann and my mother to avoid, I liked our footballing chats.

He gave me his personal version of the match report and a scathing overview of the incompetency of the manager and, just as we were on our goodbyes, he said, ‘Your mother called.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She’s worried about you. I’m sorry they didn’t like your new book.’

‘Oh.’ I felt both touched by the concern and surprised my parents were on speaking terms since the news of Jo-Ann’s pregnancy, at the age of forty-five. ‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘It’s probably for the best. I’d have been like Gwyneth Paltrow, telling the world about my perfect life, and then in book two, oh, by the way, my perfect man has only gone and uncoupled me. I’d be that woman at literary parties who people whisper about out of the corner of their mouths – her first book was amazing but he left her, you know, and she never got back on form.’ Tears filled my eyes. Self-pity is seductive, but it makes you pitiful.

‘That’s the spirit,’ my father chuckled. ‘I’m glad you’re staying positive. Look, darling, you can come here until you find your feet.’

My spirits lifted. ‘Really?’

‘Of course. Just a moment,’ he said quickly. He muffled the phone. I could hear Jo-Ann talking indignantly with an offended ‘Excuse me … seriously … don’t I have a say in it?’ and my father replying in a low stern voice, ‘Daughter … bad patch … least you can do …’ Didn’t he know the phone had a mute button?

The truth was, I couldn’t imagine moving in with Dad and Jo-Ann. Nothing wrong with her, and probably they’d grown out of the constantly touching stage by now, but she was home all day and how would I find the space to write?

I was ready to hang up when my father’s voice came clear again. He was slightly out of breath after the argument. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s okay. Thanks for the offer, Dad,’ I said briskly, ‘but I’ll manage.’

‘Oh … well done!’ he said, sighing with relief as if he’d just kicked his work shoes off. Yeah, that Jo-Ann. She pinched. ‘The next game’s on Sunday; Spurs at home. Speak to you then.’

I got off the desk. My left leg had gone numb.

Checking through my emails, I found the one from Carol Burrows at London Lit offering me a job.

I composed a reply and told her I’d been reconsidering her generous offer of tutorial work of a few months previously, and I was now in a position to take her up on it and give something back to the community. (Coming up with a line like this is one of the benefits of writing fiction.)

Carol Burrows phoned me about ten minutes later to ask me if we could meet for lunch, adding apologetically that it would have to be in the college canteen – which was a relief, because canteens I could just about afford, if it turned out I was paying.

The London Literary Society is down Euston Road so I had a quick shower, dressed in the red suit, took a hardback copy of Love Crazy as a thank you, which was all I had to offer, walked to Kentish Town and caught the tube to Euston.

Carol Burrows was waiting for me by the barrier to the car park, wearing a fluttery green print tea dress and a leather biker jacket. She was her fifties and her curly brown hair was cut in a wedge; she looked feminine, stern and erudite, as if she belonged to the Bloomsbury set. After she’d given me a visitor’s pass to hang around my neck we went inside, straight to the canteen. She had a burrito and chips and tea and I had fish and chips and a Diet Coke, and as she paid I helpfully carried the tray to a table.

‘The full-time post of creative writing tutor has been filled,’ she said, drawing up her chair.

‘When? Since I spoke to you this morning?’

‘No, a while ago.’

I changed my mind about giving her my book, but then she said, ‘We’re looking for someone to take an evening course. It’s for writers who want to progress towards publication.’

‘Hmm.’ I opened my Coke can. Pffft!

She smiled, and delicately cut a chip into three with her knife and fork. Her eyes met mine. ‘We all feel it would be a great fillip for the college to have you here.’

Philip? Oh yeah. I felt better already. ‘How much would be …’ I’d caught her way of speaking, ‘… the salary?’

When she told me, it sounded fair enough, until she added ‘pro rata’.

Whatever happened I realised I was going to have to get rid of the flat and find somewhere else to live. I felt ill again. But at least this was guaranteed money in my hand, I reasoned, squirting ketchup on my plate. And it wasn’t totally a copout. It was still about writing, still creative, and possibly – here’s the smart bit – I might get inspiration from my students.

Readers sometimes feel that taking things from life is cheating, and that fiction should be something a writer has completely invented from some mysterious source deep in the imagination, but the truth is, all stories come from reality. Take Hemingway, for instance. He plunged straight into the action. Married young, fought wars, replaced his wives, insulted his friends and found himself with plenty of material to keep him published for years. Of course, his friends stopped talking to him once they recognised themselves in his books and he made his ex-wives utterly miserable and in the end he shot himself, but that’s not the point. The point is, he got what he wanted, which was fame.

I might also get some new ideas from my students. This is not in any way plagiarism. Plagiarism is the ‘stealing and publication of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas or expressions and passing them off as one’s own’, according to Wikipedia and I’m giving the source so as not to be accused of plagiarism, which would be a horrible irony.

‘There is some paperwork involved with the course in the form of progress sheets and end-of-term assessments,’ Carol said, her delicate hands fluttering, ‘but nothing too arduous.’

‘I was expecting that,’ I lied. Assessments were another name for school reports. ‘I will take the job.’

She spent the rest of lunchtime asking for my professional opinion on books I hadn’t read. Some I hadn’t even heard of. I bluffed and mumbled around my food, pulling adjectives out of the air and even said that one of them was ‘too wordy’, which to my surprise she agreed with.

When we’d finished, she escorted me to the office, took my photograph, gave me my staff pass, showed me the fire escapes and the location of the library as she was contractually bound to do, and by the time we said goodbye I was feeling optimistic.

I’d had a hot lunch and found myself a job. Things were looking up.